Confessions of a Teenage Werewolf: Year One
by Loki Mischeif-Maker
Summary: When I met them - Sirius and James were prepared to cause havoc, half of it by accident. Peter was more than a little confused. As for me . . . Between my friends and my life, I'd just like to survive school.
1. The Letter

**Disclaimer:** If Harry Potter were my world, I would a) be writing _Half-Blood Prince_ instead of this, b) not have killed Sirius, c) not be a teenage American. Since I'm a teenage American Sirius fan writing this, I can assume that I'm not JK Rowling. Since I derive no tangible profit from this (unless you count reviews), I urge you not to increase my lawyer-phobia by suing.

**Author's Note:** This has nothing to do with another fic of mine— First Year— and they're quite different from one another aside from the starting off point. So while I'm by no means discontinuing First Year, I'm telling two _different_ stories about the Marauder's first year, one take that's Sirius-dominated and one that's Remus-centered. And while if all goes well, this will start a seven part story, First Year is ending at that. And, yes, the title is a little off for the first two parts, because Remus is eleven and twelve, but I'm sure we can handle that. I'm actually close to four chapters ahead of myself, so I can guarantee updates. That explained, I appreciate reviews in all their forms (you flame me and I'll find a way to laugh about it). Cheers! — Loki

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"Gerroff," I mumbled, rolling over in bed. My body ached, and I really didn't want to face any of the possible reasons why. On the other hand, the person over me didn't appear to care overly much, and continued shaking me. "Fine, fine, I'm up, dammit," I muttered.

"Considering the date, I'll pretend I didn't hear that. And you don't look like you're up."

"Mum?" I asked groggily, sitting up and regretting it as it shot pain up through my shoulders. The sun was coming in through the windows— probably late morning— and as much as the rest of my body hurt, nothing was as bad as my temples and jaw, the latter of which I began to rub, wondering what I had gotten in my wolfish mind to destroy the previous night.

Mum shook her head. "_Now_ you're up," she told me. "C'mon, Remus, I let you sleep until noon." I mumbled under my breath about how that was really only because I hadn't actually fallen asleep until sunrise. She shook her head and glanced around. "Your father has announced that he'll fix your desk the ordinary way with his 'great' carpentry skills." She snorted, throwing the blinds open after I'd shut them the previous night.

"Give him a break, Mum— you did marry him, didn't you?"

"I forgive many of his faults," she answered absently, turning back to me. "But the man has yet to prove to me he can hold a hammer properly and handle the function of a screwdriver. Therefore my way of forgiving him in this case usually involves not letting him anywhere near the toolbox." Absently she pulled her wand out to fix the doorknob. "If you're not down in ten minutes I'm coming to wake you back up."

I groaned and decided that maybe I'd best get up, which took more effort than I'd actually predicted. Between exhaustion and the headache, I could hardly see straight. Or think straight, for that matter— I realized that when I couldn't find a pair of jeans, clean or otherwise, in a room I hardly bothered to keep at all neat. Since I destroyed it once a month, I couldn't see the point in that. I considered myself to have expended enough energy for the day by the time I'd stumbled downstairs.

In the livingroom, I flopped onto the couch and grabbed one of the papers. Blearily I examined it, trying to determine if it was the _Daily Prophet_ or the _London Times_. Since I still couldn't see straight enough to figure it out from the heading, I was searching the front page for movement. I didn't see any, and so assumed it was Dad's paper. Wondering absently what Mum had done with the _Prophet_, I flipped directly to the sports page.

I only followed soccer and Quidditch on a regular basis, and nothing interesting had happened in the Muggle sport. I flipped rather uninterestedly through the rest of the paper— if anything big had happened I'd hear about it sooner or later. I put the _Times_ back where I found it and started looking for the _Prophet._

When a yell sounded from somewhere else, I sat up alarm. "What the. . . ?"

Dad emerged from the garage, trying to stop his hand from bleeding. From what Mum had said, he'd gotten it with a nail or the back of the hammer. Everybody said I was the spitting image of my father, but I was fairly glad I didn't suffer from the same shortness he had— I promised to be about average height like Mum— about the only thing like looks I shared with her— and was almost as tall as Dad already. "Maybe she was right about not letting you near the toolbox under any circumstances," I muttered.

"Your mother gave you that, did she?" he asked, faking insult. "She doesn't have a clue what she's talking about— I know _exactly_ what I'm doing."

"That has yet to be proved!" Mum called from upstairs, obviously well aware of what was happening downstairs.

"Neither has her theory that I'll die fixing furniture," Dad muttered under his breath, glancing with mock-exasperation in the direction of the steps. "You did a number on that desk, Remus."

"Well, since I'd already destroyed everything else at some point and Mum had enough sense to keep her owl out of there. . . ." I grumbled, leaning back against the sofa.

He grinned ironically— somehow as long as I hurt nothing alive the broken furniture could become a joke. I'd rather it stay that way. "I can put it back together, but I can't sand down all of the bite marks."

I mumbled something probably irrelevant. "What'd Mum do with her paper?" I asked to change the subject.

"If I had any idea, I'd tell you," Dad answered, glancing around the living room. Mostly everything was in place, but anything that wasn't _obviously_ wizarding— a couple of magical cookbooks and Mum's cloak— had been tossed haphazardly where they lay. I got my organizational skills from my mum. "Why?" he added.

"Scotland played France in Quidditch last night," I answered with a shrug. "Obviously, I missed the score, assuming it's over by now."

Dad nodded— even though pretty much all he'd managed to grasp about the magical world concerned the truth about werewolfism, the fact that the owls were not going to stop swooping in through the window every morning, and the general idea that Quidditch was a sport. I'd tried to explain the details of the last one several times but continued to fail miserably.

After a moment, he drew the _Prophet_ out from under the tv guide. "Wonderful place for moving photographs, Karen," he mumbled— generally we tried to keep Mum's pictures and papers out from where Muggles might find them, and it was generally Muggles that came in the house.

It took a minute of shuffling through it to find the scores. "Damn, France won. I think that puts us out of the cup again— Mum, has Wales lost yet?" I called.

"I don't think so!" Mum hollered back.

"It would be nice if you had that discussion when you didn't have to shout," Dad commented absently, heading into the kitchen to find bandages for his hand. I started flipping through the tv guide, wondering at how I could have a month left to the summer and already be bored out of my mind.

"_Karen, couldn't you have built the perch for these damned birds outside_?" Dad hollered after a few minutes. Another owl must have swooped through the kitchen window, and while he'd learned to handle them I was under the impression they still made him nervous.

"No," Mum called back. In the kitchen, the owl hooted indignantly.

After a moment or so, Dad emerged from the kitchen with a yellow colored envelope and tossed it to me. "It's got your name on it."

"Huh?" I hadn't broken through the window last night— I'd definitely have remembered that— so it wasn't another warning about controlling myself from the Ministry of Magic. I glanced down the green ink it was addressed in and wasn't able to find a return address, so I flipped it over to see the Hogwarts seal. "They're letting me go?" I asked, half in shock.

"Why wouldn't they?" Dad asked.

I lifted an eyebrow and muttered something about fur. Dad said something about a point as I ripped the letter open, deciding to tell Mum as soon as I was sure of what was inside. " '_Dear Mr. Lupin, you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_,' " I read aloud. "I just want to know _how_. . . ."

"How what? I'm going to handle both members of my family doing something I don't really quite understand?" Dad asked good humoredly.

"You've handled my obsession with Quidditch," I pointed out, sticking my hand back in the envelope to attempt to find what might actually explain _why_. As far I as I knew, Dad had wondered off to find Mum. I found a supply list and another letter, this one written on an entirely different type of parchment, probably so as not to get mixed up.

I was in the middle of deciphering the second letter, which was written in loopy handwriting which generally got on my nerves, when my parents came back down. Mum was as excited as I was beneath my shock— Dad was trying not to laugh from her reaction. Apparently he'd drawn the conclusion that since his wife was a witch his son must be a wizard, which wasn't the most accurate conclusion but had worked.

"What's that about?" Mum asked. She'd already picked up and scanned the first letter I'd drawn out, and was now glancing over my shoulder at the second one.

"Something about taking the necessary precautions," I muttered. "I can barely read it."

I got a face full of dark hair when she leaned over to look at it. "Wow. It's got Dumbledore's signature on it," she told me. "D'you mind if I. . . ?"

I shook my head, bumping into hers, and she took the letter, scanning down it. "Ah— the explanation of what they're going to have to do with you at the full moon."

"What?" I asked automatically.

"When we get your Herbology book, I urge you to look up the Whomping Willow," she answered absently, being of absolutely no help and handing it back.

"If you two are going to discuss magic, I'm going to get back to that desk," Dad announced, making a move to leave.

"Henry Lupin, you have just torn off half an inch of skin with a nail! There is no way I'm going to let you continue to hang around sharp objects," Mum started, following him in the direction of the garage as if to stop himl, although I had my doubts she really would.

Shaking my head at my parents' banter, I went back to flipping through the letters. I was really going. . . .


	2. Sirius Black

Once inside the Leaky Cauldron, I half-consciously edged closer to Mum. I'd been there a couple of times before, but something about it made me a little nervous— dark interior, smoke from fires and pipes not necessarily burning tobacco, and not necessarily human "beings" hanging around probably all had something to do with it. She shook her head when I bumped into her arm and led me out back.

Muttering to herself, she started tapping the brick wall— since she had an abysmal memory for these things, it took her three tries to get it right. Once out of the Leaky Cauldron and into Diagon Alley, I was more comfortable. As crowded as the streets usually were, I didn't mind crowds so long as there was enough light, and the shops were far too interesting to really notice the noise. Because I hadn't been there nearly enough to not be fascinated, Mum had to pause several times to find me again.

"Honestly, Remus, at this pace it's going to be dark by the time we get to Gringotts. It's not like you've never seen this place before," she added wryly, following my gaze to the Magical Menagerie, where I was preoccupied staring down a group of rats who had decided to find me interesting.

"Um . . . Mum?" To say the least, I was _not_ a fan of the Gringotts' carts.

She sighed. "If I saw someone I knew, I might give in, but there's no way I'm going to leave an eleven-year-old here on his own," she announced. I shrugged, well aware that I was going to make the errand miserable for the both of us, and she sighed irritably and glanced around. "Hold on a second— Frank! Frank Longbottom!"

A boy a couple of years older than I was turned to face us. "Hullo, Mrs. Lupin," he greeted Mum. "What's going on?"

"Knowing boys your age, you're headed directly for the Quidditch shop," she answered with a shrug. "I don't particularly want to make a trip to the bank worse than it has to be, so if you are would you mind keeping half an eye on Remus?"

I grumbled something about not needing a babysitter. Frank grinned and nodded. "I don't think that can be too much trouble," he answered.

As practically all I knew about Frank was that our mothers were friends— his being three or four years older than me we'd generally ignored each other— the walk to Quality Quidditch Supplies was rather uneventful. He seemed to find it amusing when I stopped to stare at a crazy old wizard chasing a multicolored lizard down the street, shouting a combination of profanities and threats if it didn't "get back over here this instant" at it. When I asked if the lizard was supposed to have been multicolored he just laughed and beckoned me on.

We split up inside, Frank headed towards the different brooms, muttering something about trying out for the Quidditch team this year. I made a beeline for the magazines and amused myself for a few moments just spinning it in circles at various speeds, until the clerk started to glare at me when I had it going so fast a few of them flew out. I cleaned up and flipped through them, trying to figure out if this month's issue of the Tornadoes fanzine was out yet.

"Whatcha looking for?"

I looked up, startled, to see a dark-haired boy about my age. He was half a foot taller than I was, black hair tousled and grey eyes friendly. "I assure you that since I've been in and out of this shop all day I'll know if they've got it."

"Um. . . ." I usually kept to myself, both at school and when Mum had run into wizarding friends with sons or daughters, meaning the few friends I had approached me first. I really had no idea how to talk to a stranger who's name I didn't have some clue what was.

"My name's Sirius Black," the boy continued, spinning the rack. The clerk immediately looked up with a glare of murder. Sirius grinned back at him. "That makes the second person today who's decided I'm mental— third if I count the look you're giving me," he announced.

I glanced around, wondering if one of his parents was going to show up in a moment, drag him back out, and demand to know what he was doing in Quidditch Supplies _again._ Sirius only grinned. "Oh, I ditched my mum after about three shops. She's probably looking for me mad as hell about now. I'm betting she's already looked here now; probably figured I wandered down Knockturn Alley to see what havoc I could wreak there. . . ."

I shuddered. I'd never been down Knockturn Alley, but I'd heard horror stories about it, some of which were probably invented by my mother to keep me out of there.

Sirius stopped the rack and started flipping through the magazines. "Read that . . . glanced at that . . . this month's issue of that hasn't come out yet . . . is there anything here I have _not_ read three times already?"

"Laddie, I don't think there's anything on that rack you haven't read three times _today_," the clerk announced with a cockney accent.

Sirius grinned— now I was slightly worried about the boy's sanity. "If you say so. . . ."

He appeared to consider spinning the rack again, but caught the clerk's glare and apparently came to the conclusion he'd rather not be strangled. Instead, he turned to me. "Did I ever ask you your name? 'Cause if I did, I must've forgotten it. . . ."

"You didn't," I told him quietly, "it's Remus Lupin."

He nodded, running a finger down the stats of the Hungarian national team. This seemed to begin a conversation in his way of thinking, although he did most of the talking, partly due to the fact that I was just starting to get comfortable with him, partly because he talked so fast it was hard to get a word in edgewise. Sirius quickly proved that he had far too much energy to safely expend it in Quality Quidditch Supplies. He was everywhere at once, attempting to discuss the Scotland-France game with me at the same time. When he'd discovered I'd missed it, he started giving me a play-by-play, which isn't easy when you've got four balls, fourteen players, and apparently were half asleep by the radio. "And . . . er . . . how much of this did you actually understand?"

"Honestly? Not a whole heck of a lot," I admitted.

That's what I thought," Sirius admitted, glancing around the shop. "I know there's those little moving models around here somewhere."

Predictably, they were on a top shelf. Sirius was tall for our age, but he still wasn't tall enough to get to the top of a six-foot shelf. Eventually the clerk got out from behind the counter and got it down for him. "Don't want you sendin' things flyin' again or knockin' any shelves over," he grumbled.

I chuckled. Sirius demanded to know what was so funny. "Nothing, really. I can just see you knocking these shelves over."

"I think I'm going to bruise," Sirius agreed. "My cousin tells me that if I don't learn some semblance of grace I'm going to be stuck behind a desk all my life, for my own safety as much as the rest of the world's." He grinned, starting to move the players around. "Now where were we. . . ." He was off again, imitating the radio announcer in an almost uncanny impersonation as he moved them around.

With the rate at which Sirius could talk, particularly when he was excited, I was starting to realize, it only took about twenty minutes to completely exhaust the subject of the Quidditch game. Not that he didn't try to drag it out, asking me if I'd ever flown before.

"Once," I admitted under my breath. "I got fifteen feet off the ground and panicked."

"Better than me, then," Sirius answered cheerfully. "Walls still have that annoying habit of moving themselves to right in front of me."

I laughed at that. Sirius was obviously as ungainly as he was energetic, but he had a sense of humor about it. Living in a house that rescued more than a few close calls with Muggles every month and with parents that could still laugh about it, that was the only way I knew to get by.

Sirius left the model where it lay, not about to risk the clerks wrath yet again by putting it back up, and started wandering among the brooms. "You starting school?" he asked absently.

"Got the letter last week," I mumbled. "Shock of my life, really."

He looked up, surprise and friendly interest radiating from those grey eyes of his. "Why? You know enough about Quidditch I'm guessing you're not Muggle-born, and I wouldn't think—"

I shrugged and interrupted him. "I'm half and half."

"Oh, well, I guess that may make sense," Sirius answered. "I'm just starting, too." He smiled, some semblance a maniac about him. "Andromeda claims the school won't be left standing when I'm done and I can honestly claim it's an accident."

"I wouldn't doubt it," I mumbled as a rack of beaters clubs tumbled over when he bumped into it, at the cost of glares from several other patrons, including Frank.

I started to help him get the clubs back into some type of order, but to say the least my organization skills were not the best and Sirius only seemed to make things worse. Eventually Frank joined us to sort things out, and it took telling Sirius to stop trying to help to get them up. Frank was muttering something about menaces— Sirius seemed to find it amusing and I saw his point— when Mum showed up. She tapped Frank on the shoulder, thanked him for keeping an eye on me, and asked what had happened. Frank launched into a long, irritated explanation about how annoying the two of us were.

"Erm . . . Remus?" Sirius asked.

"What?"

"D'you mind if I hang around with you for a little while?" he asked. "I mean. . . ." He trailed off and shrugged, but I had some idea what he was trying to get at— he'd said he was only my age, and I didn't know anybody in that category who wanted to be in crowds alone.

Frankly, though, I was surprised that anyone would ask _me_ that question. I was used to kids just looking at me and being able to see I was different, and it hadn't occurred to me then that in some ways, every kid in this Alley was "different" in one of the ways I was. "Um . . . sure. I mean, if you really want to."

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Author's Note:** Thank you to my six reviewers, for the criticism and encouragement. Centaur219, you're right— soccer's different in the UK. How stupid of me. If you want to comment on Sirius's character especially, I'd appreciate it! Cheers! — Loki


	3. Diagon Alley

Mum didn't mind a tag-along, especially one as friendly as Sirius, as soon as she knew I'd invited him along and his name. He told her that his mother was somewhere around there, conveniently leaving out the detail that he'd slipped off, and apparently unaware that he seemed to be able to talk for five straight minutes without taking a breath, asked her if she was where I got my quiet from. She laughed at him and told him that she had no idea where I learned it— both Mum and Dad could talk plenty when allowed a word in edgewise. Sirius went red and was subdued for all of about five seconds. "I'm quiet because I can't fit a word in edgewise with the two of you, either," I mumbled, putting on a show of being irritated at it.

She laughed. "Most kids whose parents talk that much are shouting to be heard," she commented. "Now where are the two of you going to drag me first?"

I dragged the both of them into Flourish and Blotts. Sirius immediately found the section on hexes and counter curses— I followed him quite happily. Mum called something about finding the books I needed while the two of us explored as we headed off.

Sirius was flipping through one of the books by the time I caught up. "Looking for anything in particular?" I asked him.

"Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what Bellatrix shot at me last family reunion. She got a Ministry letter for it— my uncle was furious. She told him it was more than worth it. Ah, here it is. Nasty thing. Wonder how quickly I could learn to get her back with something. . . ."

I glanced at the curse, suddenly surprised he hadn't needed a healer for that one. Sirius shrugged at my reaction. "Hey, I've been threatened with the Imperius to get me to behave— obviously it hasn't worked, and that sure isn't an Unforgivable." He continued to flip through book, moving on to curses he found himself likely to cast; meanwhile I found a charm to change the colors of things, wondering aloud absently if the wizard chasing his lizard had used that charm.

"There's a multicolored lizard out there being chased by someone?" Sirius asked. I nodded. Sirius snorted and shook his head. "It's not funny . . . really, unless it's a chameleon, but. . . . Well, there's never a dull moment on this street, that's for sure."

I had to agree with him.

Sirius found some slightly more benign curses and was reading their effects out loud, speculating what the reactions of several of his family members might be— probably the best of the lot was his description of a girl named Narcissa's probable reaction to having her nose turned into a pig's snout. Mum had some trouble dragging us out of the bookshop.

Mum herded us into the Apothecary next. While she talked to the older clerk about potions supplies, Sirius decided to cause trouble with younger clerk, attempting to explain to her precisely how to smuggle Chimaera eggs out of Greece. She seemed pretty nervous, and kept mumbling something about not selling Chimaera eggs. "I _know_ that," Sirius told her, "I'm just trying to _tell_ you. . . ." He described a somewhat unlikely incident of smuggling them out by wrapping them in packaging paper and explaining to Muggle customs, should they be run through on of those little things that showed to insides of things— I had to break in with the fact that it was a x-ray machine here— that they were model dinosaur kits.

He was getting into how to sneak them out by air, and the girl was staring at him oddly, as if she though he was crazy— I must admit I was beginning to agree with her. I tapped him on the shoulder. "I think you're making her nervous."

"Well, yes, that's the point," Sirius told me, and turned back to the clerk. "Well, Sphinx cubs are a little easier to get legally, anyway," he added to her, and she made a grab at the opportunity to turn the conversation from the smuggling of illegal eggs to magical beasts in general.

Meanwhile I made an attempt to examine the other things in the Apothecary, like unicorn horns and dragon hearts in their glass cases, but I had to poke my head up and correct one or the other so often I eventually just joined in the conversation, which was leaving the realms of the uncomfortable anyway.

In another shop, Sirius pulled a ball out of his pocket and we started tossing it around, until he ran into a stack of cauldrons and sent them toppling. Despite our offers to help pick the mess up, both Mum and the clerk chased us out, announcing that they'd clean it, and Mum adding that she would skin us if we wandered off too far— she seemed to have decided she'd look after Sirius until we found his mother.

"Something tells me we shouldn't have done that," Sirius muttered, glancing back into the interior of the shop, where the clerk was spelling the cauldrons back into their places.

"No kidding," I muttered.

"I have been reminded that my parents aren't kidding when they say they can't take me anywhere," he added, shaking his head.

"I wonder why," I said sarcastically.

Sirius snorted. "You think _that_ was bad? I managed to send me, my brother, and my aunt's cat off the roof once— we were lucky my uncle was trying to figure out where we were. And even that's nothing to me on a broomstick. . . ." Perfectly cheerfully, he explained that he'd succeeded in breaking five bones flying alone, not mentioning falling down stairs, fighting with various family members, and climbing, as he put it, "things that apparently weren't meant to be climbed."

Mum came out, shaking her head. "I'm beginning to wonder what kind of trouble the school's going to be in if the two of you stick together through it. . . ." she announced. "What've we got left?"

"A wand," I answered.

"Ah, yes, Ollivander's," Mum said. "One place even a pair of eleven-year-old boys might have trouble causing a scene."

Sirius declared that he would race me there. I have no idea what possessed me to agree with him, but I chased him all the way down the street. Sirius skidded to a stop just before the door. "I win."

"You had a head start and your legs are longer," I panted in my defense. "I can be pretty fast when I want to be."

We headed in after Mum appeared. The inside of it was dark and there wasn't much too it. It was almost entirely full of shelves of wands and the air was very still. "Good evening." An old, man with silvery eyes appeared, looking us over. "Hm. . . . Back again, Mr. Black? Your mother was in here looking for you half an hour ago."

"Was she mad?" he asked.

"Exceedingly."

Sirius grinned at that like he was happy about it; I reached the conclusion that I'd never met anyone more crazy in my life and probably never would.

Mr. Ollivander turned to my mother. "Karen Jessman? Oak, wasn't it, thirteen inches?"

Mum started but nodded. "Yes . . . so you do remember every wand you sell. It's Lupin now, though; I've been married for almost fifteen years," she corrected him.

"Then the other boy must be your son," Mr. Ollivander guessed.

Both of us nodded. Mr Ollivander looked me over and went to the shelves, pulling down a couple of the boxes. The first one he told me to try was ten inches long, made of yew and unicorn hair, and didn't last long in my hands. The next several lasted equally long— the fourth only about two seconds, I'll still swear— and Mr. Ollivander, who'd first struck me as one of those calm old men who were never really startled became excitable indeed.

I think it took over fifteen tries to come up with one that felt different from the others— ash, twelve and a half inches, with a dragon heartstring core. I was more than happy of it; I'd always hated being the center of attention and now I had three pairs of eyes on me. Sirius was trying not to laugh. "You'd think you were a witness in a murder trail," he told me.

"I don't like people looking at me," I grumbled.

Sirius shrugged. "I can't imagine how. Than again, I s'pose I've really had to get used to it." If the time we'd spent together was any indicator, that was certainly true— he'd caught more than enough notice today in any single incident I could think of.

We headed back out, and Mum was in the process of asking Sirius if he had any idea where his mother might be looking for him, when somebody started shouting his name. "_Sirius! Sirius Black!_"

"Er . . . I think that may be her," he said.

"_Do you have any idea how long I've been looking for you?_"

"Yeah, that's my mum, alright," Sirius said with a sigh, turning to face a severe looking woman. It was obvious where Sirius got his height from— she had to be almost six feet tall. She had black hair, too, pulled back into a bun, and she looked livid. "Hi, Mum," he greeted her, perfectly calmly.

"_Honestly, I have been looking everywhere for you for three hours!_" Mrs. Black shouted. It was a wonder more people weren't stopping to stare. "_And all you can say is 'Hi, Mum'? Do you have any idea how worried I've been?_"

"I'm fine!" Sirius protested.

"Do you really think I've been worried about you?" his mother asked, apparently trying to calm down. "More likely the general populace!"

"I haven't hurt anyone else, either!"

Mrs. Black glowered at him and turned to Mum. "Thank you for keeping my son from getting into too much trouble," she said.

"Oh, it really wasn't that much of a problem," Mum answered.

Mrs. Black raised a skeptical eyebrow and started off. Sirius glanced at her and sighed, obviously well aware he was in for it. "Well, see you on the train, Remus," he told me. I nodded and he followed her.

Mum shook her head after the pair. "Probably one of the most unusual boys I've ever met," she commented absently. "I don't particularly blame his mother for being worried about the rest of the world. Shall we get the rest of this done and head for home ourselves?"

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**Author's Note:** I have twelve reviews? I have twelve reviews! Yay! I hope this is worth checking back with me. . . . we very close to the train, and where Hogwarts is, the other two Marauders can't be far behind (nor can my three important OCs, but that's another story). Thanks to my reviewers, specially those who keep 'em coming! Cheers! — Loki 


	4. September First

I woke up about dawn on September first. I knew better than to wake up my parents— to say the least, Dad wasn't a morning person, and as for Mum, I was under threat of the bat-bogey hex if I disturbed her for anything but a Chimaera attack before eight.

Quite predictably, I buried myself in a book— _Combating the Dark Arts_. I'd wheedled Mum into getting me a few more wizarding books, and I was particularly interested in Defense Against the Dark Arts, which when I bothered to think about it was to a certain extent ironic, considering that in most people's eyes I was a Dark creature myself.

Mum found me at about eight-thirty curled, fully dressed, on the couch with it, and announced that even though Dad hated it when she did it, she was spelling the stove to make breakfast and fighting him on the issue of getting out of bed, as she didn't have nearly enough energy to do both. "And if you smell anything burning, Rem, you are to get out of that haze and rescue it," she added as she wandered back upstairs.

I nodded distractedly and turned the page.

Mum's normal cooking abilities weren't all that great, but nothing burned as far as I could smell it— and my nose is better than most people's. Fifteen minutes later she wandered back down. "And I think _you're_ bad after the full moon," she muttered, wandering past.

As if to confirm her grumblings, Dad emerged a few minutes later, obviously not in the best of moods. "It's _not_ eight-thirty," he told me groggily, joining me on the couch.

"'Course it isn't," I told him with a grin. "It's nearly eight-forty-five."

"Someone tell your mother I will never get out of bed willingly?" he asked softly.

"And you actually expect to ever get that point across?"

He mumbled something dark and announced that he was going to get the paper. I shrugged and turned the page, paying him no more attention than I did Mum. It took Mum a full minute and a half to get my attention to tell me to come eat, after all. "He's his mother's son, alright," Dad muttered when I finally came in. "Never understood how the two of you could get that buried in what's practically a textbook."

"Well, Henry, in the wizarding world, your basic instruction manual to Muggles looks and sounds a lot like a textbook— they're our instruction manuals to wands," Mum answered.

Dad muttered something incoherent under his breath and reached for the coffee pot.

He didn't start to get a little irritated until we were in the car on the way to King's Cross, and Mum and I were talking nonstop about what Hogwarts was like when she was there. Well, Mum was talking nonstop; I kept steering her talk off boys and back to classes and teachers. "Is this all I'm going to hear about during Christmas and Summer holidays?" he asked finally.

"Relax, no," Mum muttered. "Now, can you get onto the platform?" she added, more than half to herself.

"I hate to bring this up," Dad told me at the next stop light. "But you do know what they're doing to . . . keep you safe . . . during the full moon, don't they."

"_They_ do," I muttered, more than a little sullen. "No one's bothered to explain it to _me_, though."

Mum explained"There's an old, abandoned house up at Hogsmede— it's not condemned," she added when Dad raised his eyebrows. "They've built a tunnel to it from the Hogwarts grounds, and put a Whomping Willow at the etrance to keep other people out when Remus's in there."

"And you didn't tell me this before because. . . ." I prompted.

"You never asked."

This started an argument about whether or not I needed to actually ask about things like that, especially as I'd given up on Dumbledore's handwriting about five minutes after Mum had originally read the note and ahe knew it. "What's a Whomping Willow?" I added sometime into it.

"Herbology is not going to become your favorite subject, I guess," Mum answered. "It's a tree that beats anything that comes close to it."

Once at King's Cross, Mum instructed me to walk into the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Both Dad and I looked at her like she'd just lost her mind. "I have not," she answered, too used to the look to mistake the question. "It's just how you can get on; it's behind the barrier."

"Mmm-hmm," I murmured, skeptical.

"You'll be fine, I promise," she assured me, a little irritably. "I'll go through it first, if you two are really that nervous," she added.

"_Nothing_ can entice me to walk into that barrier," Dad announced.

"Then wait for us outside," Mum answered resignedly, rolling her eyes. "You are hopeless, Henry."

"The word you're looking for, Karen, is 'sane;, not hopeless," he answered dryly. He gave me a one armed hug and told me that I'd better write or _he_ at least, was going to get rather worried. After I'd said goodbye to my father and turned to her, Mum sighed and pushed through the barrier. I followed, apprehensive.

She'd been right, of course— the train was there and bright red, and the little sign read platform Nine And Three Quarters. Dad must've been just a little unnerved about now. Mum was waiting for me. "I told you, you'd be fine," Mum answered me. "You've got everything?" she added.

I nodded, and knew full well that they'd send me anything I didn't anyway.

"Good." She glanced back towards the archway that would lead to the Muggle train station and turned back to me. "I'm just a little nervous leaving you here by yourself. . . ." she muttered.

I shrugged. "Sirius said he'd see me on the train, so it's not as if I'm going to really be alone."

"No, but he is another eleven-year-old boy and the two of you would have ended up in a whole lot of trouble at Diagon Alley if someone hadn't been there to pull you back out," she pointed out. "Besides, now I'm worried about the conductor. . . ."

I let her carry on that train of thought for awhile, suffered with no small amount of patience through her hugging me and telling me to write just as soon as I got a chance— something I came very close to reminding her I'd already gotten from my dad.

When she let me go, I got on the train, looking for someone I knew— preferably Frank or Sirius, the two people I knew I might find. Frank was with a group of his own friends, blocking the path through the car, and it took me a little while to find Sirius. He as in a compartment by himself, playing solitaire when I came in. "D;you mind. . . ?" I stared softly.

He looked up. "Hullo, Remus. 'Course I don't. I think I was the one who told you I'd see you here, wasn't I?" he added.

I nodded and sat down beside him. "How's it going?"

"My mum is so much harder to ditch when Dad and my brother are around, you know that?" he asked. "I actually had to sit through that lecture. . . ." He shuddered. "I'll go mad in a heartbeat if I wind up in Slytherin, you know that?" he asked. "My whole family's in there, except one, and I can't stand anyone but Andromeda."

I nodded. "I think my mum and uncle were Ravenclaws, but I can't remember anything else about the Houses," I admitted.

"Well, I'm hoping Gryffindor, but you can't tell til you get there, can you?" he asked.

Apparently the cards he was playing with were Exploding Snap, because a moment later they caught fire in a blaze that startled the both of us. Sirius absently started drawing a picture in the ash with his fingers. His artistic abilities were not the most brilliant I'd ever seen, to put it mildly. "What's that supposed to be?" I asked him eventually.

"A dog," Sirius answered. "It looks like a dog," he added. "Are you blind."

"No it does not, and I have more than enough experience with the dog family," I answered. "If it's a dog, for one thing," I added, reaching out and drawing it with one hand, "it needs a muzzle. And a face."

"Now you've messed it up," Sirius announced mock-irritably, shoving me playfully and smoothing the ash again so it was a drawing board again. He started again.

"Still drawing a dog?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Now it looks kind of like a deranged horse," I announced cheerfully. "I'm not sure that's quite the effect you were going for."

"Oh, shut up, Rem, it's not done yet."

"I don't think it's salvageable," I replied with a grin. "Forget in need of completion. Draw it a mane and call it a deranged horse."

"Um . . . do you mind if I join you?" a soft voice asked. We both looked up to see a short, chubby boy, with mousy-brown hair and a tentative smile on his face.

"Nervous?" I asked automatically.

He nodded. "Well, do you?"

I shook my head. Sirius was still half-distractedly drawing. "If you'll tell me what this looks like, sure," he announced cheerfully.

The boy looked over and grinned. "It looks like a deformed rodent with its whiskers cut off."

I laughed. Sirius sighed. This was certainly going to be an interesting train ride.

**Author's Note:** Okay, now there's only one Marauder left . . . and a train ride and a feast in which I can introduce him! Btw, to answer one quick comment— Padfoot1987, don't be nervous reviewing me because of Fan Fiction 101— your reviews are really pretty good! As usual, though, anyone who has CC will be appreciated for giving it! Cheers! — Loki


	5. The Sorting

The other boy's name was Peter Pettigrew, and he turned out to be a fair hand at poker. Sirius had pulled out another pack of Exploding Snap after the witch with the snack cart had come by. He'd gotten a box of chocolate frogs and a mound of the beans, then suggested we play poker with the beans. It wasn't log before Peter had won most of them. The cards actually lasted about an hour and a half before they exploded.

"And I think I was winning for once, too," I murmured. Peter had yelped and left the compartment for a "walk", which we'd forgiven him for as he'd confessed to being Muggle-born.

Sirius started to unwrap a chocolate frog, which promptly started to attempt escaping his grip. "With Peter, I wouldn't be so sure," he answered. "He's most likely faking us out on most of them. Kids got one heck of a poker face." He beheaded to frog to stop its struggling and looked at the card. "Merlin again."

I shook my head— at least he wasn't attempting to draw dogs in the ash again— after Peter had joined me in thoroughly teasing him about his lack of artistic skill, he'd given up and joined me in a conversation about quidditch. Once we realized we'd left Peter behind, we began explaining the sport to him, before being interrupted by the witch with the cart.

Peter returned, and he was with a pretty girl with tousled dark hair and bright blue eyes like the sky out the window. "Hullo," she greeted us. "Have you guys seen my cat? She wandered off about an hour again and I'm starting to get a little worried."

"What's she look like?" I asked.

"She's black and white spotted," the girl answered.

"Then she wandered into the compartment across from ours and she hasn't come back out as far as I can see," I told her.

"Thanks. I'm Athena Terrance, by the way. Who're you?"

"Remus Lupin. That's Sirius Black," I answered. "I'm assuming you've introduced yourself to Peter?"

Athena nodded, thanked me again., and went to retrieve her cat. "Well," Sirius observed, "that was an interesting encounter. Where'd you meet her, Pete?"

"Around," Peter answered with a shrug. "She was looking for that cat."

We returned to trying to explain Quidditch to Peter, who was not comforted by Sirius's accounts of bludgers going into stands and harming spectators, as much as he assured the boy that it was an unusual occurrence. Eventually, a prefect stuck his head in and told us we'd better think about getting ready. "That late already?" I asked, checking my watch.

"Quidditch passes the time," Sirius announced with a grin.

We did pull our robes on then, which was only about five minutes before the train pulled to a stop. Sirius hopped out quite cheerfully, followed slightly more reluctantly by Peter. I froze for a few moments, suddenly more than nervous. I shouldn't be here. Next week was a full moon. Sirius came back after about a minute and tugged my sleeve. "C'mon, Rem— they said get off."

I nodded and let him lead me off the train, still aware I'd gone paler than I usually was. Peter looked at me and muttered about how he'd thought _he_ was nervous.

"Firs' years!" I bellowing voice called. "Firs' years over here!"

We headed over there, where a huge man in an overcoat that was oversize even for him was bellowing. He introduced himself as Hagrid, and led us to a group of boats. He told us to get in four to a boat, and all of us scrambled in. Sirius, Peter, and I wound up in the same boat as Athena. The boats started across the lake, and when we rounded a corner we got our first glimpse of the castle.

"Wow," was all Sirius could say for the first time I'd known him.

"It's _beautiful_," Athena whispered. "Like I've wandered into a fairytale."

I had to agree with both of them— the castle was an awesome sight. The boats docked and we all climbed out, and Hagrid led us to the front door and knocked. The door opened on a severe looking woman that reminded me a little of Mrs. Black, though she didn't seem so frazzled at the concept of looking after perhaps fifty eleven-year-olds as Sirius's mother had been looking after one. "I am professor McGonagall," she announced, "the Head of Gryffindor House and the deputy headmistress of Hogwarts." She led us inside before she continued her speech.

"In a few moments I will lead you into the Great Hall to be sorted into the Houses. There are four of them— Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. All of the Houses have admirable qualities—"

Sirius snorted here. "Slytherin, admirable?" he muttered.

"—and have produced great wizards in their time. Here, the house will be like your family. Doing well will earn your House points. Trouble-making will loose house points. Now, if you will follow me?"

We all did, filing in silently Peter was muttering about what the Sorting Ceremony might be like and whether or not it would be bad. Sirius was still muttering irritably about Slytherin. I was quiet and still pale, probably more nervous than both of them.

They got out a hat that was placed on a stool. The hat was heavily patched from years of Sorting Ceremonies, and looked as if it might fall apart. I glanced around at the older students seated at their tables. There were so _many_ of them. Whatever we had to do, why did it have to be in the spotlight. I'd always hated the spotlight; just being watched by Mr. Ollivander, Mum, and Sirius getting a wand had made me nervous.

The hat opened a rip near the brim and began to sing.

"_It's been a thousand years or so_

_Since this school was new_

_And its four founders were within it—_

_But to me it seems only a few._

_Once upon a long, long time_

_I sat on Gryffindors bold head_

_And so I know the Sorting's birth—_

_And it, since their deaths, I've led._

_Brave Gryffindor was a dragon-slayer_

_He favored the strong and the bold;_

_He picked the students whose loyalty was true,_

_Those daring, with the nerve to break the mold._

_Slytherin, the sly old fox, favored ambition:_

_He chose those with cunning (and nerve as well),_

_Those who could plot, didn't mind bent rules,_

_With brains abound, as I can surely tell._

_As for the female founders, among them Ravenclaw,_

_The scholarly lady chose those who desired books,_

_The will and aptitude to learn, the love of knowledge,_

_And the ability to teach were valued in those she took._

_Hufflepuff, often last but never lest_

_Valued, above aught else, patience and tolerance,_

_She sided with those who would work hard to gain_

_For in such things, success comes not just by chance._

_As you can see, I am the hat that _they_ used,_

_And have judged so long as you can see,_

_I'll take a look inside your head,_

_And I can tell you where you ought to be._"

I didn't feel up to this, even with Sirius's whisper of, "So we just try on a hat?"

"My prediction," Peter announced. "You, Sirius, wind up in Gryffindor— you definitely want to break a mold." He paused. "Literally, maybe. Remus ends up in Ravenclaw. Me . . . I dunno."

"Not necessarily," Sirius muttered. "And hush."

Professor McGonagall pulled out a list and started reading names off of it. The list of "A"s was fairly short, and it wasn't far into the "B"s that she sent Sirius up there. Despite his usual cheerful chatter, he seemednervous going up to get the hat. It sat on his head longer than most of the others, before yelling, I expect to his relief "GRYFFINDOR!" He put the hat down and, with much more confidence, went to join the cheering house. After a few "C"s and a lengthy list of "D"s, she called a redheaded girl by the name of "Lily Evans," who became the next Gryffindor. Another girl ended up in that house sometime during the list of "H"s, and the next thing I knew I heard my own name.

I hesitated again, and it took Peter pushing me out to get me moving. I glanced back at the other boy, who waved me on before getting back there. I suspected that any color left in my face deserted me— I certainly felt faint.

The hat settled itself on my head. "Hmm. . . . Let's see. You've got secrets in there, haven't you?" I nodded, thinking that this was the one and only time I was ever going to let something into my thoughts, and only now because I had to. "You'd rather bury yourself in a book then fight, but your intensely loyal to your friends. . . . a need to prove yourself, yes, but to yourself rather than anyone else. . . . Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, let me think. . . ."

_Just get me out of this damn spotlight!_ I thought. _Preferably back with my friends. . . ._

"Friends, is it?" the hat muttered. "Then, it'd better be GRYFFINDOR!" It yelled the words to my intense relief, and I practically scrambled from the stool to sit beside Sirius.

"You looked like you were ready to die up there," he commented. "There's no color left in your face. You gonna be sick?"

"Not anymore," I muttered, suddenly taking a great interest in the sorting of Lydia Lyman, who became a Ravenclaw.

Before long, Peter rolled around. The hat sat on his head for some time, too, before calling out Gryffindor for him, too. "It almost put me in _Slytherin_!" he yelped.

"Well, that's odd," Sirius observed. "But you do have one hell of a poker face, you know that?" Anything else he might have been intending to say was drowned in applause from our table as James Potter became another Gryffindor.

James sat down near us, and the rest of the sorting continued. This boy seemed to take enormous satisfaction when a Severus Snape became a Slytherin, and Athena joined us at the Gryffindor table soon afterwards. When the sorting ended, Dumbledore stood, welcomed us to the school, and recited an incantation to make the feast appear. Sirius made the observation that food might bring a little of the color back into my face and we dug in.

**

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Author's Note:** This chapter only looks longer, I swear, because of the song. Speaking of the song, what do you think? I'm hesitant to put any rhyming poetry up, because it's . . . not my strong suit. Oh, and by the way— I'm glad people are noticing and liking the fact that Remus just kind of deals with his werewolfism and gets on with life in this story. He's been one for years— it kind of annoys me when he doesn't. On the other hand, this is the sort of situation where it _would_ crop up, but its one of those few chapters. As always, reviews are good! Cheers! — Loki


	6. The Feast

Sometime during a discussion of Quidditch, Sirius brought the subject of his parents up. "You realize I might get a howler over this?" he asked.

"Over what?" Peter asked automatically.

"Over not getting sorted into Slytherin," he answered nonchalantly. "Pass me the gravy."

Peter obliged, staring at him with disbelief. "What's a Howler and why aren't you worried about it?" he demanded to know.

"A howler is a letter that yells at you," Sirius answered with a shrug. "Really, its not much worse than a normal letter, when you think about it."

"Except everyone in a five-hundred foot radius knows about it," I murmured.

"Well, I s'pose there's that, but unlike you," Sirius added, grinning maniacally, "I really don't mind being at the center of attention, especially as I attract so much of it. Reckon you'll even attempt to explain something like the Houses, Pete?"

"I might," he mumbled.

I shook my head. "My parents will have lost their heads with worry if I don't send them a note that I got here without any trouble and I'm safe and sound within the week. Might as well tell them I was sorted into Gryffindor— Mum'll have a fun time trying to explain that to Dad."

James joined our conversation then. "I'll get a letter asking me if I don't tell my parents," he admitted. "As much that I didn't have any trouble as anything else. Really, since they didn't have any trouble I'd think they'd know I probably wouldn't."

Sirius shrugged. "I'm not even going to write them— Bella might tell them, and if she does I'll get a Howler. I'll get over it." he turned around a bit to wave with a ridiculous grin at a girl with his mother's expression a few years older than us. She sniffed and turned to he conversation with a blonde boy about her age.

James looked back where he was looking and caught the eye of Snape— the kid he'd been so satisfied about being sorted into Slytherin. "Any particular story?" I asked when he turned back.

"Well, yes," he admitted. "We had an . . . er . . . disagreement on the train."

"I think I know where this is going," Sirius murmured.

"The exact same thing you would have done?" I asked, not quite innocently. "It was a duel, not a disagreement, wasn't it?" I added to James.

"Course," he said with a grin. "'Cept he couldn't use that wand properly. Would've been pretty funny if I hadn't missed with the leg-locker curse and it bounced off a mirror."

"And hit you," Sirius suggested.

James scowled at him and nodded.

"Don't worry— I've done the same thing." I didn't doubt it. "Really, though, I did it with my dad's wand against family, so I think I got more hell than a detention. Did you two get detention?"

"First detentions of the year."

I let my attention wander as Sirius jokingly expressed his disappointment that it wasn't him. Athena and the redheaded girl— Lily Evans— were discussing classes. Lily seemed particularly interested in Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Athena seemed a bit nervous about it. Somewhere down the table, a few prefects were discussing the summers potions homework— "Just ask Freyson, man, he'll help you if you're having that much trouble." I glanced up at the staff table boredly— McGonagall was deep into a conversation with Hagrid, the giant that had taken us across the lake. A little wizard— probably about Peter's size, was talking to Dumbledore, the white bearded headmaster— that particular man was unmistakable.

Eventually, Sirius tried to lure me back into the conversation— "Well, Rem, what d'you think?"

"About. . . ?"

"I've half a mind to get the Slytherin's for something or other before they start the war," he answered with a grin. "I'm trying to figure out what to do it with."

"Get Peter to play poker with them," I suggested with a yawn— I really was a bit tired for all of this, and I'd rather have energy for when classes started tomorrow than try to get through the day inattentive.

"Very funny— though it would get them out of a lot of cash," Sirius answered, launching into an explanation to James of our activities on the train, and after that imploring James for details of his duel. James said he'd tell it to Sirius so long as he shut up long enough to listen.

It turned out fairly simple— James has started to strike up a conversation with Snape, which had gone along fine for some time as like half the boys in the school, James was Quidditch obsessed. Lily Evans had wandered along about then and, as seemed to be the usual case with James, he'd invited her into the conversation. Lily hadn't known what Quidditch was, and Snape had muttered "Mudblood". James's immediate reaction was to defend Lily, and she didn't seem to take chivalry for exactly what it was— she'd called them both gits when James had finally thrown a curse at Snape and taken off.

It turned out she'd gotten a prefect, who had separated them and assigned detentions.

During the fight, on the other hand, James had managed to turn Snape's hair a wonderful shade of puce, lock his own legs together, and set Snape's robes on fire. Snape had managed to do nothing but shoot sparks. Sirius was doubled up trying to keep from laughing by the end of this tale, and James was grinning from ear to ear. Peter seemed to find it small comfort to be talking to someone who had dueled on the train and someone who would have liked to join in. I told James that his effort may have been valiant, but would also have been futile.

James shrugged at that. "Oh, maybe— but some things are worth it."

Fortunately, before I could think about arguing with him, Dumbledore stood up, and the headmaster of Hogwarts commanded immediate silence. "Welcome— some of you to your first year, and others welcome back. Now that you are all fed, I must ask you to listen to me— there are a few things you ought to be made aware of.

"First of all, the Forbidden Forest is, obviously, forbidden to all students. Second of all, our caretaker Mr. Filch has asked me to remind you that there is to be no magic performed in the halls. He has added that the list of other forbidden things in the halls has been extended to include wet-start fireworks, due to some mix up last year when a couple of seventh years . . . accidentally let off a box of them in the halls. The entire list has thirty-two other items on it, and is attached to his office door." He paused to allow for the giggling of older students. Sirius tried to catch my eye and I refused to meet it. I was _not_ joining him in trying to top that.

"Thank you for your attention— I will not keep you from your beds any longer."

"How d'you reckon anyone'll top those fireworks?" James asked with a yawn as a Gryffindor prefect called the first years over.

"I'll think of something," Sirius answered, standing up with an evil grin. I had some desire to hang over him like a hawk for the next week or until he forgot about topping that particular prank.

The prefect took charge of us and led us through the castle, up staircases, and informed us that some of them had a step that wasn't really there and some of them liked to move. "How in hell are we supposed to navigate this building, then?" Peter asked with a sigh.

"No idea," I admitted, watching a Renaissance-style lady drift from one portrait to talk to a witch in a more modern-looking picture. "The portraits don't stay the same, either, and all the suits of armor look alike."

"Who really acres about navigation?" Sirius asked with a grin. "Trying to figure out where we're going's going to be half the fun of it."

"I'm glad you think so," Peter said darkly. "I have a _horrible_ sense of direction."

Eventually, the prefect led us down a corridor with a dead end, which was bordered by a picture of a fat lady wearing a Renaissance style, very pink, dress. "Welcome back, Michael," she greeted the prefect with a smile, "the password?"

"Fiddlesticks," Michael answered.

She nodded and the portrait swung open, revealing a hole we all climbed through. Michael turned around and nodded to us. "This is the common room, where you'll spend a lot of the time in the evenings. The boys dormitory is up those stairs—" he nodded to them "—and the girls is up the other. Your things have already been brought up there. Good night."

The four of us wandered up. Peter chose a bed and sat down on it, pulling off his shoes. I followed suit, but James and Sirius were apparently still full of boundless energy. They were discussing the prank Sirius had half a mind to play on the Slytherins and turned the light back on after I turned it off. Finally, Peter chucked his left shoe at them and told them to shut up and get some sleep.

I grinned as Sirius turned off the light. This promised to be a fun year.

**

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Author's Note:** YAY! Any day now I'll be up to thirty reviews! Oh, and just so you know: Athena will play a big role in this story as through all seven years, but I'm not sure quite how much she'll have to do with Year One. The Parrot has ceased to be: you SCARED me, too! Yes, I'll be careful. Padfoot— is this a good enough reason? Thanks everyone I didn't mention for your reviews, too! (Don't be scared, I've had sugar) Cheers! — Loki 


	7. Start of Term

I woke up around dawn again— when it wasn't the full moon, it was a sometimes unfortunate habit of mine— and found Sirius, Peter, and James still asleep. As quietly as I could, I dressed, dug out a book, and settled on my bed with it. It happened to be my herbology book, which I had glanced through when I first got and not really read a lot of. I quickly buried myself in it.

It wasn't to last long, however. When the sun was fully in the sky, James's internal clock went off. He yawned, tossed in his bed for a moment, and sat up. "Up already, Remus?" he asked with another yawn. "I'd have no idea how you'd do it."

I smiled. "I dunno what I'd do without half an hour to myself every morning— and it looks like I'm still going to get it."

James nodded, tossed the bed sheet off, and grabbed his clothes, retreating into the bathroom. Sometime while he was in there, Peter also crawled out of bed, muttering something strange about cats and flaming tortoises. I chose not to even ask. James reappeared dressed and Peter took his place, leaving him staring at Sirius, who was still snoring. "You reckon we should wake him up?"

After Diagon Alley, I had some idea of Sirius's strength and his lack of control over— or knowledge about— it. "Be my guest. It's your funeral."

James thought about it and tackled him. Sirius groaned and pushed him back out of the bed, throwing the blanket back over his head. James was unaffected. He stood up and pushed Sirius out of bed. With a groan, Sirius sat up, rubbing the shoulder that had hit the ground first. "What sis you do that for?" he demanded groggily. "What time is it?"

"A little after seven," I answered.

Sirius scowled at James. I grinned. "I did tell you it was your funeral, didn't I?" I asked James, marking my place in the herbology book and turning to see what the two of them did.

Sirius launched himself at James, and the two were tousling on the floor by the time that Peter came out of the bathroom. He stood in the door, watching, until Sirius finally pinned James. Sportsmanlike, he picked James's glasses up off the floor and handed them to him, then grabbed his clothes and toothbrush and retreated into the bathroom. "It's not that he's not a morning person," James observed, "just that he's a nightmare to wake up."

Peter grinned. "Ah, is that what caused the commotion?"

"Sadly, yes," James answered, throwing his blanket back on his bed and sitting down on it. "So do we wait for Sirius or go down for breakfast?"

We decided to wait for Sirius, who emerged a few minutes later, still a little disheveled but very much awake. "What're you three waiting for?" he asked absently. "Let's eat."

We followed him downstairs and got lost on our way to the Great Hall. A Ravenclaw prefect had to show us back down, and Sirius tried to sit at the Hufflepuff table, to the great amusement of two older Hufflepuff girls. When we finally got to the right table, we were laughing about it, too, although any of the other three of us could've made the same mistake.

Sirius and James were still discussing what they could do to begin a reputation at Hogwarts, and Peter and I were tentatively beginning to offer suggestions— or reasons to just behave ourselves. Eventually, the owls flew in, raising a racket even Sirius couldn't talk over and swooping down with everyone's mail. Mum's owl landed in front of me, carrying a letter from my parents. A black and brown owl landed in front of James, likewise offering him a letter. To this day, I swear that the thing that landed in front of Sirius might have been a vulture for the face.

Sirius removed the letter, dodging its snapping beak. "Wonderful," he murmured, holding up the red envelope.

"Well, hearing it out's better than it exploding, isn't it?"

"Well, exploding'll be more interesting, but if it bursts into flame Bellatrix will just write Mum and I'll get another one," Sirius answered, unsealing the thing as the vulture creature flew off.

"_Honestly a son of mine in Gryffindor? Aren't you a Black, Sirius? Why am I even asking you— of course you're not! It's not as if you ever behaved like one before, why should you start! Honestly, in the opposing house with Mudbloods and blood traitors! It's a disgrace. . . ._" The letter continued to shout at him, Sirius staring mildly at it as if it was reminding him to actually do his homework, until finally it incinerated itself anyway, and he brushed the ashes off the table.

"All that for the House," he answered with a yawn. "What d'you reckon it'll be when we finally start pulling pranks on the Slytherins. She used to embarrass me sometimes, you know— I think she's losing her touch. How about the two if you?" he added to James and I.

"My aunt's taking my mother shopping. Dad thinks she's suffering from separation," James answered with a grin. "She wants to know what House I am, what I think of my classes, and a whole lot of other things that I don't want you to know about." He paused to slide the letter away as Sirius snatched playfully at it. "I'd better write immediately, according to him, and I'd better assure her I'm enjoying my classes and am eating right at the end of the week. Now Remus gets to be embarrassed."

I grumbled something to my food. "Mum needs to be assured I'm doing alright, too. She said Dad would make her let him write the letter, except he hit himself with the hammer again— that's a Muggle tool used for putting things together," I added to Sirius and James blank looks. Peter chuckled at my need to explain. "And his right hand's swollen so much he can't."

"You're dad must be some kind of a klutz," Peter commented.

"He is."

A prefect wandered over and gave us our lists of classes soon afterwards. First thing that morning, we had Transfiguration. "McGonagall's teaching that, isn't she?" James asked. "Our Head of House?"

"If its favoritism you're hoping for, forget it," one of the older students near us announced. "If you want that, you'll have to be a Slytherin— Farbauti favors his classes." He yawned and returned to his eggs.

"I just want to size her up, actually," James admitted.

"You won't get away with a whole lot in her classes— or elsewhere. She's fair but she's really strict. Now let me eat!" the older student announced.

He was right about McGonagall. The minute we found the classroom— about the time the bell rang— and slid into seats at the back of the room, she started to talk. "All of you, I'm sure, recognize me from the sorting ceremony, so there is no need to introduce myself. My subject, on the other hand. . . . Transfiguration is not a game, however tempting it may be to treat it as such, and anyone who does so will find themselves out of my class— and possibly out of Hogwarts— very quickly. It is a tool, and one of the most dangerous fields of magic."

She turned her desk into a horse, which circled the room and made Peter nervous, until McGonagall convinced it to come back and become a desk again. Most of the class got pretty excited about the subject, then, though she set us to turning needles into toothpicks, which she said was standard procedure.

It was harder than Professor McGonagall had made it look, and it wasn't the incantation. Sirius got rather frustrated with it and managed to change his needle from silver to blue. Neither Peter nor I succeeded in working a change, but James's needle was pointed on both ends by the end of class. After class, he admitted to Ollivander commenting that his wand was especially good for Transfiguration.

"Ollivander didn't tell me anything about my wand," Sirius announced. "He just told me I really ought to mind my mother."

"Which you didn't listen to," I pointed out.

"Where's the fun in behaving?" Sirius asked.

After Transfiguration, we went to greenhouses for Herbology, which was a job to even find. We ended up all the way across the grounds, when Hagrid, the giant that had led us across the lake, pointed us in the right direction. Seeing as it was the first day of school, Professor Sprout told us we should know where it is now and she wouldn't take points off next time.

Sirius quickly announced is disappointment in Herbology because there was nothing dangerous in Greenhouse One, where we worked with plants that were almost normal. Peter retorted that he wouldn't like to be put somewhere dangerous on the first day of school.

After that we had lunch, in which Sirius and James continued to plot their entrance into the school. I told them that if they intended to make fools of themselves, they's better do it before next Thursday. Both of them gave me the strangest looks, until I realized what I'd said. I could be an idiot.

"Well, Rem, if you insist," Sirius answered. "We'll do it before next Thursday."

I went even redder then and nodded. "What . . . what've we got next?" I asked to change the subject.

"What? Oh . . . Defense Against the Dark Arts," James answered after a moment, diving into his bag and pulling out his schedule.

"Who with?" Peter asked.

"'Professor Jack Farbauti'," James read.

"Isn't that the head of Slytherin House?" Sirius asked.

"Well, yeah. . . ." James shrugged. "Guess we might have to be a little careful, unless we want to— probably— loose the first points of the year."

"I get the feeling you'll do that every year," I murmured.

**

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Author's Note:** For those of you that have noticed my habit up updating this every Sunday, I got on to upload it two weeks ago just to find out that it was down for two days! Life is unfair sometimes! Padfoot— thanks, just thanks, as to everyone else! Cheers! — Loki 


	8. Jack Farbauti

"C'mon, Pete, we're gonna be late," Sirius announced, hurrying down the hall with Peter scurrying after him. James and I were somewhere in between, trying to keep up with Sirius's long legs. It was ironic, almost, that Sirius was trying to hurry Peter up— it was really his fault that we were so late. Sirius had sworn Andromeda had shown him a passage that led to the third floor— where we were trying to get— which had, in fact, led back to the Great Hall. It had taken a lot of confusion and a Ravenclaw prefect to get us back on the right track.

"I can almost guarantee Farbauti's not going to be so forgiving as Sprout," James grumbled, "and we don't exactly have another excuse."

I nodded, and we picked up the pace. The bell had rung a few minutes ago, and we were at least on the right hall. Sirius, James and I got into the classroom about the same time— Sirius had stopped to wait for us— and Peter came barreling into me. "Easy— you alright?" I asked.

He nodded, just as James announced. "Well, _that_ was certainly worth it— he's not even here!"

I glanced around to confirm it and nodded absently, my attention distracted by something else. It was in a tank near the front of the room, draped among rocks, branches, and some kind of a shrub. Black and garishly orange striped, it was a cylindrical thing pulsating slightly. "What d'you reckon _that_ is?"

Sirius wandered right up to it and tapped the glass. "Good grief it's a _snake_," he answered.

Peter and I joined him in a second. It was a snake, but it had three heads. Two of them appeared to be asleep, but the third was awake, glaring at us from red eyes. "What kind of a snake had three heads?" Peter asked.

"I dunno," Sirius answered, glancing at me. Somehow being the one that had the right answers when asked questions from a book had appointed me the one that should know.

"I think I remember something, but no, I don't know what it is," I answered. I couldn't help but notice James was not with us— he'd sat down in the back of the room and was rummaging around in his bag. I turned back to the snake, resolving to ask him later.

"You've woken him up, and now he's angry," another voice announced behind us. "And that's the left head— and the left one's the most venomous of the lot."

We whirled around in surprise. Professor Farbauti was a tall man, well over six feet, and broad-shouldered. He had blondish-red hair— at any rate a much lighter color than Lily, who was right behind him— and dark eyes, glaring at us. Peter squeaked and tried to hide behind Sirius, who was far too gangly for it.

Sirius had a mild look on his face, a look I already knew spelled trouble. "Well, if you don't mind my asking, sir—"

"His name is Jormungand and he's a Runespoor," Farbauti answered. "He's pretty smart, too— I won't guarantee he can't get out of that tank. Now— I think you were supposed to be seated by the time the bell rang— if you're there within the next five seconds I might consider not taking points off."

We were probably there in three, even if Sirius _did_ trip over Lily Evans and Athena Terrance's desk on the way back. He took points off anyway.

Farbauti then began to go over what every teacher had before even thinking of trying to teach us anything. Instead of taking notes on the rules, I pulled _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ out of my bag and flipped through it in search of Runespoors. James glanced over and returned to taking notes with a purpose. Peter and Sirius, on the other hand, looked over interestedly.

"What's it say, Remus?" Sirius asked.

"Hold on, I'm looking!" I exclaimed. "Nothing all that interesting in the first paragraph. . . . Here we are: '_The Runespoor, though not in itself a particularly vicious beast, was once the favorite pet of Dark wizards, no doubt because of its striking and intimidating appearance. It is to the writings of Parselmouths who have kept and conversed with the serpents that we owe our understanding of their curious habits._' well, that's certainly interesting."

Sirius glanced over at Farbauti. "Well, d'you reckon—"

"Parselmouth or Dark wizard?" I asked him, arching an eyebrow. If any of his suggestions for terrorizing Slytherin's were an indicator, Sirius's imagination would get us into more than enough trouble.

"Either, but I was thinking Dark wizard. Ever seen a Parselmouth that wasn't one, anyway?" he asked eagerly.

"What _is_ a Parselmouth?" Peter demanded.

"A wizard that can talk to snakes," Sirius replied, reaching out and tapping James on the shoulder. "Say, James— why didn't you come up, too? That thing . . . Jormungand, he said it was? . . . Well, it didn't hurt us, if that's what you were worried about."

"I. Don't. Like. Snakes," James answered through gritted teeth, in a way that suggested he wanted the subject left very much alone. Peter and I returned to diligently taking notes. Sirius was unperturbed but at least didn't press the issue.

After Farbauti's fifteen minutes of note taking was done, he informed us that unlike in some classes, we would get immediately to work. After levitating the desks to the edges of the room, he instructed us to get into pairs. James glared at Sirius when the other boy offered to pair with him and asked Peter, leaving me with our excitable friend.

"I'm going to teach you _Expellaramus_— if you ever go up against someone in a duel or otherwise, you're likely to find this useful. Properly used, it will disarm an opponent. Improperly used, it's capable of causing quite a bit of damage." He beckoned to a girl who's name I couldn't remember from the Sorting Ceremony. "If you wouldn't mind getting your wand out?" he asked.

She nodded, obviously terrified, and pulled it out of a pocket.

"The wand movement goes like this," he announced, flicking his wand. "The incantation is _Expalleramus_— try it on me."

She continued to look absolutely terrified, but she did as he asked, waving it and muttering. "_Expel— Expeallaramus!"_ Nothing happened, and she shook the wand again, still muttering.

"Not quite," Farbauti answered dryly, demonstrating the wand movement again. "Now that you may have . . . some idea," he announced, "try it in your pairs."

Almost nobody could do it. Farbauti stalked like a wolf around the room, correcting wand movements and incantations. He didn't help matters any. James wasn't having any luck, and Peter didn't seem to be having any effect on our friend, who looked halfway bored. I fared no better, and Sirius was getting a little frustrated.

"If you manage to turn me blue like you did that needle. . . ." I murmured.

"Relax, Rem, I'm not going to do that," he tried to assure me, still shaking his wand like a ketchup bottle, as if he expected the spell to slowly slide out of it.

"You're not going to get anywhere moving the wand like _that_, Black!" Farbauti announced.

Sirius growled something probably best left unsaid and waved the wand properly again. "_Expellaramus!_"

Maybe the frustration did something but at any rate, this time the spell worked. Too well, I might add, as it wasn't just my wand but me that went flying and slammed into one of the desks against the wall. Sirius came running over. "I'm sorry; I'm an idiot— are you alright?" he asked. It came out quickly, punctuated by muttering I probably didn't want to understand, anyway.

"I think I'm fine, really, Sirius," I answered, reaching up to rub my head. I came off with blood above my ear.

"It's nothing Madame Pomfrey won't be able to cure in an instant," Professor Farbauti announced coolly. "But since it _is_ his head, he might be a little disoriented. Black, since you no longer have a partner anyway, you might as well make sure he gets up there. Though Merlin alone knows why I'm trusting two of the people who got lost on their way here."

Sirius nodded and helped me up. We did have to ask someone— Professor McGonagall, as it happened— how to get the hospital wing, but we got there alright. Madame Pomfrey fussed. She demanded to know why the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher found it fit to teach first years something as potentially dangerous as the Expelling Charm on the first day of school, no less.

After a few moments she shooed Sirius out. He still looked worried, and it took a few minutes to get him to leave. After he did, though, she had the cut mend itself, which stung more than a little. "Next Thursday," she told me, "get up here about half an hour before nightfall. I'll get you down underneath the Willow."

I nodded absently, barely registering the information through the massive headache she hadn't fixed. Then she shooed me out back to class.

Sirius was waiting for me in the halls. "Are you okay?" he asked me again.

"I'm fine," I assured him. "Just a cut, wasn't it?"

"You look paler," he answered.

"_I'm fine_," I grumbled. "Let's go make sure James hasn't done the exact same thing to Peter now, shall we?" I added, heading off down the hall.

"You're sure you're headed in the right direction?" he asked me.

"I've probably got more of an idea than you," I said with a grin.

**

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Author's Note: **Yes, I am rebelling against the "Evil potions master for the Marauder's too" cliche! Besides, evil DADA teachers should be more fun. We _will_ meet the potions master eventually. And we'll figure out why I made James afraid of snakes (and it wasn't for grins and giggles). Oh, yes, and I must of course disclaim the passage from _Fantastic Beasts, _I just can't find a better way to say it! To answer some comments: The parrot has ceased to be: fortunately, that's one of the few. Xandria Nirvana: Actually, I know he's never a pureblood, and I've seen him Muggle-born in at least one other place. Thanks for the reviews, guys, I really appreciate it! — Loki 


	9. Potions and Pranks

The rest of the week passed relatively quickly. Sirius and James took to sitting in the common room at night, trying to figure out what they were going to do. They invited Peter and I into the discussion, but we both came to the conclusion that we'd rather be able to plead ignorance to whatever teacher caught us— I, at least, took it for granted that we were going to be caught.

In the evenings, we engaged in actually studying. I think Peter was overwhelmed by the magical world— while he was good enough at Herbology and History of Magic, Charms and Transfiguration appeared to confuse him. Neither of us ever wanted to discuss the amount of time I'd spent helping him with the essay on _Expellaramus_ Farbauti has assigned. I told him time and again that he'd get used to using magic and it wouldn't be so difficult for him to get a spell to work. He complained that most of the other Muggle-borns were getting along just fine. "They," I reminded him, "don't have two friends who are determined to blow something up before next Thursday."

Peter couldn't deny that I wasn't right.

When Friday rolled around, we had Potions, double with the Slytherins, first thing in the morning. Sirius, who had a big family, most of whom were older than he was, was telling us about the only teacher he knew about besides Dumbledore. Apparently, while Potions was generally Slytherin House's subject, right now it was being taught by a former Gryffindor, much to the chagrin of Jack Farbauti, from what he'd heard only recently.

"Well, it's got to be better then another Farbauti," I pointed out as Sirius gave Peter's cauldron the boost it needed to get fully up onto the table.

"_Binns_ is better than another Farbauti," James pointed out, fiddling with his glasses. "And, I mean, that Binns is better than something is saying a lot."

The bell came and went. "Not very punctual, is he?" James asked. He was still apparently smarting over the fact that Farbauti hadn't gotten into his classroom before the bell rang and still taken points off Gryffindor for _our_ being late. He was also refusing to discuss Defense Against the Dark Arts, but we all suspected it was because he had no desire to discuss his fear of snakes.

About a minute after the bell, the Potions professor came hurrying into the dungeon, muttering to himself. With all the grace of Sirius at his worst— which he had proved this morning included somersaulting down the stairs completely by accident— he tripped over Athena's book bag and landed on the floor. His glasses came flying off. James leaned down and picked them up.

The professor, Horus Freyson, picked himself up off the ground slowly, grabbing his roll list as he did so. Pulling his wand out of a robe pocket, he muttered, "_Flammas Torches_" and the torches on the walls flared to an even brighter light. "That's probably better," he announced, stumbling around the room and nearly tripping over a blonde Slytherin girl Sirius had admitted with some chagrin was his cousin. He ran into the table we were at and James handed him his glasses back. "Thanks," Freyson muttered, repairing them with his wand— one of the lenses had cracked— and shoving them back up his long nose.

In addition to his long nose, Horus Freyson had somewhat shaggy black hair and stubble where he'd neglected to shave— and considering how absent-minded he seemed to be, it was probably because he forgot. His skin and the eyes behind his newly repaired glasses were both pretty dark, like an Arab's. He was about average in height, slim, and had the same Expression Mum did— meaning he had his head in the clouds.

He got to the front of the room without any more mishaps, and threw the roll carelessly onto an already cluttered desk. "I swear I ran down here," he announced dryly. "But because I was at the headmaster's office, getting a new roll after I lost the first one, I obviously didn't make it." He glowered at the torches. "There's also never enough light down here. While Professor Farbauti kindly reminded me the other day that I've been threatening for years and never actually done it, as that would involve getting my desk in a state to be moved, I feel it necessary to warn you I may have this classroom moved to an upper floor so my appalling vision can actually pick something out. Now, roll. . . ."

He got through roll alright, and an explanation of Potions that comforted Peter a great deal. "Oh, it's just _chemistry_."

Sirius and James both exchanged blank looks. "Erm, Pete. . . . What's chemistry?" Sirius asked him softly.

Peter and I exchanged looks and evil grins— since my dad was a Muggle I knew plenty about the Muggle world— and Peter replied, "Potions for Muggles."

Sirius gave him a long look, knowing full well that if he tried to chuck something at us he'd miss, and announced that he'd get a better explanation out of us later.

Professor Freyson set us to making a potion that would cure boils. James stopped muttering with Sirius again, glanced up at the board, and got to work. Sirius looked put out for a second or two but realized why. The potion was supposedly simple, but that was to someone experienced. To us, it was _hard_. Peter, actually, though, seemed to be doing pretty good, even getting confident enough to correct me, as I was _not_.

"No, Rem, it's eye of newt," he muttered, pulling my hand back from my cauldron.

"How did you suddenly turn into Eienstein?" I asked him softly, picking up the appropriate ingredient.

Pete shrugged. "I'm good at chemistry— most sciences, actually. I just don't really get magic. This really isn't magic."

I had to agree with him— having devoured every text book we'd gotten by now, I knew a lot about magic. I still had yet to fathom the deep mystery that is any form of chemistry. I doubted, as Peter pulled my arm away again and again, that I ever would.

Meanwhile, Professor Freyson had started to circle the room, offering suggestions and compliments as he wandered from cauldron to cauldron. He commended Peter's work, as it was already simmering the yellow color it was supposed to be, and told James to stop threatening Sirius with the caterpillar entrails and add them to his potion. I winced when he glanced at mine— it was more green than it was yellow, and obviously a little too far gone to fix. "Actually," he told me when I muttered that, "this might salvage it." He pulled a plant out of my Potions supplies.

"Thanks," I muttered.

"Oh, no problem. This is the first time, for Merlin's sake— some of you kids take this class a little too seriously. Besides, it's not the worst mess up I've ever seen. Maybe one day I'll tell you about it." He grinned. "I don't think anyone here is as nervous and accident-prone as that poor student, so we won't have a repeat."

"He's calling anyone accident-prone?" Sirius asked, as he nearly tripped over Athena's book bag again.

"_You_, Sirius, are accident-prone," I reminded him, adding the plant Freyson had given me to it a little bit at a time, until the color slowly started to change.

"Besides, he's got thick glasses," James defended him, giving Sirius a look. "I can barely see without mine, and that guy's're thicker than them." He lifted an eyebrow.

After seeing him after Sirius had outright accused him of being afraid of snakes, none of the other three of us ventured a comment about glasses that might offend him.

The one real surprise of the class was that Freyson stopped by Severus Snape's cauldron, cocked his head, and admitted, "Well, I'm impressed." The liquid simmering in it was the exact color, not even like Peter's that was _almost_ but not quite perfect. Snape had done it like a professional. Needless to say, we were _all_ impressed.

"I didn't know he could do anything but botch curses," James muttered. I pointed out that they had done nothing since the train ride but shoot each other scathing glances, and therefore of _course_ he didn't. James ignored me.

After Potions, as we were heading upstairs for another Transfiguration class with McGonagall, Sirius and James unveiled their great idea for a prank— and that was that, with the help of Peeves, they were convinced that they could rig the bust of Uric the Oddball outside of Argus Filch's office to fall on his head as he headed out.

Everyone hated Filch— this was a given as he had a penchant for giving out detentions— and he had already succeeded in giving Sirius and James one as they came down the hall tossing a ball back and forth and Sirius, being Sirius, managed to hit that bust of Uric the Oddball, knocking it over had it not been for Filch, who saved the statue and yelled at both of them, threatening to have regular balls added to the list of things that they could not have in school.

While this would no means top the wet-start fireworks, it was certainly something. Against my better judgement, I agreed to not only let them do the damn thing, but to convince Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost, to tell anyone passing as we tried to rig it that someone had exploded a load of dungbombs on the corridor.

It was then that I decided, given the circumstances, that I must be every bit as crazy as the two grinning maniacs I was walking to Transfiguration with.

**

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Author's Note:** Two and a half weeks! Killer writer's block, so sorry. . . . Anyways, Remus said himself in PoA that he was NOT good at Potions, and as it helps destroy the image of him as the Marauder's complete bookworm, I happily seized it. So, I still appreciate all reviews! Cheers! — Loki 


	10. Busted

"You know," Sirius commented. "I'm probably stronger than either one of you."

"I don't care," I told him, trying to hold the bust up so James could properly anchor it and Uric didn't loose his nose. "We are _not_ trusting you with anything breakable. Now turn around and keep your eyes peeled— there's no guarantee that Nick can keep _everyone_ from coming down this hall!"

Sirius shrugged and turned back around. "Oh, look, it's Farbauti's snake," he announced boredly.

James nearly dropped his end of the statue. I nearly howled in exasperation. "Sirius, its not funny when I'm trying to keep my weight in marble from crushing me!"

"Then let me help— put Peter on watch duty."

"Peter's trying to find Peeves," James reminded him, tugging the statue a little farther onto the pedestal so it _wasn't_ completely crushing me. "We aren't about to trust you with sharp or breakable objects. There seems to a rule about it, like not running with scissors."

Sirius shrugged and turned back to the hallway. For five minutes, we were left alone to try to get a rope tied around the stupid thing, until Sirius decided another stupid ploy. "Hullo, Mrs. Norris."

This time _I _jumped, and it was a good thing that James had finally gotten the rope knotted or I'd be under eighty pounds of marble. "I'm serious, it's not funny," I snapped.

Sirius pretended to contemplate it. "No, _I'm _Sirius, you're—"

"_Sirius!_"

He gave up. The next time he turned around, it was because Peeves had returned, trailing a frazzled-looking Peter and cackling maniacally. "Pete has returned, and he has succeeded in his quest. Why didn't you send me after the poltergeist, anyway? He didn't want to go."

"Because you would've gotten lost in five minutes. Now get up there and help!" I exclaimed.

Sirius joined James at the top of the pedestal— which was hardly made with enough space to properly hold both of them— and took hold of the rope. James, fortunately, knew better than to leave it to the bigger boy. "Peeves, Pete, one of you— tie it there," he demanded, removing one hand long enough to gesture at the hook we'd installed in the wall to having to hold it entirely until the intended victim came along— though we all knew Filch was a good enough dodge it would miss him.

Peeves was surprisingly obliging in picking up the rope. Unfortunately, at that moment, Nick's voice called from down the hall. "You boys might want to put up!"

Peeves disappeared. "Fair weather friend," Sirius muttered.

"Next prank's on _him_," James growled, pulling on the rope. "Maybe we can get it up and still run for it— Sirius, help me with it."

Sirius tugged on the rope, too, and Peter helped me push, and we got it up. James was still balanced between Uric and the wall, with the rope a telltale sign of mischief when Filch actually appeared, though. "My office, now," he said shortly.

Sirius swore. Filch lifted an eyebrow. "Well, come on," he growled.

We glanced around at each other and shrugged— it wasn't as if we had another choice. James hopped off the pedestal and we reluctantly followed Filch into his office.

An older student, undoubtably a trickster himself for telling us it, had told us that Filch's office was dark and dusty, with manacles hanging from the ceiling and if you looked closely at the back of the wall, there would be a skeleton among his stack of brooms. This made a nice story— Peter had shivered appropriately at the skeleton part and Sirius and James had wanted to know whose it was— he'd answered that it once been a Slytherin who conjured snow in the dungeons over Easter holiday— but it was only a story. The reality was much less romantic. Filch's office was lit well enough to see things clearly, and while there were manacles hanging from the ceiling, they were lovingly polished manacles I could see my reflection in. In fact, I doubted there was a speck of dust in the entire room.

Sirius was examining the brooms as I looked at the ceiling. "Nope," he muttered. "No skeleton. I'm disappointed."

"But hardly surprised," I murmured. "Besides, if he'd killed someone, you'd think he'd have hidden it better— you'd expect the caretaker to make a clean job of it."

"Your puns are almost as bad as mine."

"Note the _almost_," James told him irritably, "we hear the one about your name again and we throw you into the lake and hope the Giant Squid is friendlier than those fifth years made him out to be. That joke was old the day you were born!"

"Now," Filch announced, pulling out a piece of parchment and a quill to write something down to put us in his filing cabinet. Somehow, I got the feeling he'd be putting us in his filing cabinet rather a lot. "You have nearly damaged a bust of Uric the Oddball, which I now have to clean again—"

"It was due, the thing was covered with dust anyway," James announced.

"—attempted to drop something on someone's head— I don't care who's at the moment—"

"Three guesses, and it wasn't a teacher, a student, or Hagrid," Sirius told him.

"—and generally wasted my time on a Sunday afternoon," Filch continued without giving Sirius his three guesses. He glanced over at Peter, who was looking up at The manacles and apparently amusing himself by trying to distort his image in them more than they already did. "As much as I would love to hang you by those for the night, Dumbledore doesn't seem to approve of it," Filch grumbled.

The four of us exchanged glances, and Sirius opened his mouth, undoubtably for an "I wonder _why_."

Filch cut him off before the words were out. "Instead, however, you can help me clean the trophy room on Thursday night. Now, get out of here."

The other three left, but I stuck around for a moment, staring down his cat until he noticed that I hadn't left. "And what exactly are you still doing here? D'you want another detention?" he snapped.

"Actually, that's exactly what I want— I . . . I can't do it Thursday night."

The cat leapt up onto Filch's desk, and he stroked her ears absently, lifting his eyebrows. "And why not?" he wanted to know.

How many people knew Dumbledore had let a werewolf in? Madame Pomfrey, certainly, but that was expected— I never got out of my wolf shape without getting hurt. Probably Professor McGonagall, but _Filch_? "Um," I said, staring at the calendar.

Filch glanced over at it. "What is so special about Thursday night?" he demanded. Realizing that there was something written on it, he got up and glanced at it. "The full moon. The headmaster said there'd be a werewolf coming to Hogwarts. It would be one that caused trouble in more than one way. Fine— you're not getting out of it because you're 'sick.' I'll think of something else. _Now_ get out of here."

I left quite happily, making my way back to the Gryffindor common room. I really didn't want to think about Thursday night, and while it was unreasonable I was furious at Filch for bringing it up. I wasn't normal— so what? Well, part of me happily took to that argument, but the other half kept muttering something about Dark creatures. I was too confused and pushed the entire thing out of my mind for the time being.

"There you are," the Fat Lady commented when I appeared. "When your friends came back without you I was half-afraid you'd ended up in the hospital wing."

I shrugged.

"Password?" she asked, still cheerfully.

I paused, trying to remember it. "Waddawasi," I muttered finally, looking up at the sky and asking no one in particular why it had to be me.

In the common room, Sirius was already planning revenge. When my only response to the concept was to lift my eyebrows, he explained. "Because he's a complete pain in the—"

"Filch or Peeves?" I interrupted.

"Both. What were you doing sticking around?" he added curiously. "Not trying to get out of detention, were you?"

"I wish. It wouldn't've worked anyway," I mumbled. "Thursday is just not going to be my night."

"I don't think it's going to be any of our _week_," Peter grumbled. "We've already gotten caught rule breaking and two of us—" he grinned at James and Sirius "—already have _two_ detentions. What were you trying to do, anyway?" he added.

"Nothing," I said evasively. "Anyone up for a game of chess?"

James and Sirius shook their heads— they were evidently talking about the next prank they were going to try to pull— and probably get me and Peter to participate in. Peter, however, looked interested. "How does it change in the wizarding world?" he wanted to know.

"The players move on their own— and try to throttle each other," I told him, heading up to the dormitory and coming back down with my set.

Lily Evans, who was doing homework, stopped to watch us. "That is absolutely barbaric," she commented when my knight took out one of Peter's bishops.

"That's the fun of it," I told her cheerfully. "By the way, Peter, that's check."

Peter grumbled and looked around, trying to find a way to take my knight. We were used to James and Sirius conspiring in the corner by now, so the detentions, for the moment, had been entirely forgotten.

**

* * *

Author's Note:** Who said the Marauders had to succeed at every prank they pulled? Loki would like to take this moment to apologize for the wait. Apology accepted? And of course I had to play with Pete and Rem's characters as far as academic strengths— none of them were perfect, and Peter was smart enough to fake his own death, wasn't he? Anyway, thanks for the reviews, folks! Cheers! — Loki 


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